how top-down and bottom-up causation conspire to produce the world that we've got. We have bottom-up causation that permits a vast number of varieties at all sorts of levels. And then downward selective processes determine which of those

how top-down and bottom-up causation conspire to produce the world that we've got. We have bottom-up causation that permits a vast number of varieties at all sorts of levels.  And then downward selective processes determine which of

Downward Causation Many commentators see downward causation as a way to account for the manner in which God causes events in the world. I follow Barbour in expressing reservations with this approach . The trouble, as I see it, is

Causation Stated most simply causation is how one event or process might be said to produce, and so explain, another. In terms of Christian theology, orthodoxy seems to suggest that God is capable in causing things to happen, although

of bottom-up and top-down causation in hierarchical systems. It is predicated upon the assumption that chaotic dynamics does not provide the required openness in physical systems. Furthermore, his analysis of top-down causation convinces him

to the question of downward causation. In Küppers’ opinion, both emergence and downward causation are to be found within physics. Since no “non- physical principle” is involved, apparently, in the transition to life,

recast as a dispute over causation.  The reductionist says, in effect, all causation is bottom up; that is, the laws of physics down here determine everything that happens and the causation percolates upward, determining what happens all the

be recast as a dispute over causation. The reductionist says, in effect, all causation is bottom up; that is, the laws of physics down here determine everything that happens and the causation percolates upward, determining what happens all the way

a concept of the downward causation of the mental in order to reconcile the notion of mental causation and free will with neurobiological causation. But I stop here and I have saved you 20 minutes to ask me questions. Topic

Aristotle ’s theory of causation, which included not only material causes (what things are made of) and efficient causes (what past events affected them) but also formal causes (to what pattern the matter in them conforms) and final causes